Isolation Causes Loneliness. What Else Can It Do To Our Bodies?

months since President Trump issued the first national guidelines for social distancing, including pausing nursing home visitors.

NPR's Ashley Westerman recently checked in on her 100-year-old grandfather. Paul Westerman's wife of 76 years is in hospice care. He's alone, except for the nurses in his veteran's home.

Plus NPR's Chris Arnold checks in on a Boston hair stylist going back to work.

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Barber Karl Manke who faces two misdemeanor charges for reopening his shop despite state shutdown orders, sanitizes the barber chair before cutting a client hair at his barbershop on May 12, 2020 in Owosso, Michigan. JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

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JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images

Barber Karl Manke who faces two misdemeanor charges for reopening his shop despite state shutdown orders, sanitizes the barber chair before cutting a client hair at his barbershop on May 12, 2020 in Owosso, Michigan.

JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images

This episode was produced by Annie Li, Emily Alfin Johnson, Lee Hale and Brent Baughman, and edited by Beth Donovan.